Event reviews

What a totally inspiring, motivating, moving and fantastic day!

Hi to all those involved with this website and the recent conferences. I attended Manchester last week, and thanks to the snow in my area today, I’ve had some time to look back over all the resources on the website and notes I made with a view to sharing a summary of the day with lots of additional info for my colleagues down here working in Recovery services in Herefordshire.

What a totally inspiring, motivating, moving and fantastic day Friday was. I felt dazed and a little overwhelmed all the way home. You’re doing such a great job, not only of sharing this utterly important information, but also creating a movement/attitude which is infectious in a really great way. You’ve so inspired me spread the word. It must be a mix of the absurdly accurate message you are sharing, and the passion with which you present it. I would go as far as to saying that attending on Friday will impact the direction of my career for the better, and hopefully really benefit the people I work with. Thanks to you all.

Nancy

Time to change & be brave?

On a personal note, I like many others have experienced difficulties with my mental health largely through several difficult experiences and have struggled to make sense of the things that happened in my life. After exhausting the approaches I had hoped would make me feel better I approached a clinician and almost begged for a diagnosis. In my mind, at the time, I thought I would be able to hide behind this label and give up on quest for healing. Instead of a diagnosis I was introduced to the concept of formulation or a way of telling my story and finding meaning within it. For a creative person, an avid reader and lover of literature I found this approach fascinating and so started my journey. [more]

Kirsty Lilley

Inspirational, funny & humanistic

I wanted to offer my thanks for a fantastic day. Jo, I enjoyed the coming together of so many strands of argument you have shared in this group, from Ruby Wax’s not-so-funny show to the infiltration of psychological therapies and the entrenchment of the biomedical in all areas of life. Ending on your poem was inspirational, and you performed it excellently. I know it was performed by someone else in the past, but there is something additionally moving about the emotion conveyed by the author themselves, and I am glad I had the opportunity to hear you perform it. [more]

Thomas Tulodziecki

Skilfully woven together

The day was skilfully woven together by Jo Watson who introduced the event with some wise words and then invited Jo McFarlane to speak. This included some of Jo’s life as well as some of hers and her partner Sally Fox heartfelt poetry. From there, Jo then introduced The main speaker, Lucy Johnstone, a clinical psychologist. Lucy Johnstone’s very informative input formed the bulk of the day as we all listened to her extensive experience and enormous effort in her approach to challenging main stream psychiatric diagnosis. [more]

Edward Giles

An Emotional And Intellectual Voyage

“For me, the day’s emotional and intellectual voyage involved a meeting of secular, humanistic and broadly-speaking spiritual enquiry and celebration, as together we explored definitions of humanness and reflected that life’s vicissitudes understandably have an destabilising effect on our fragile sense of equilibrium in a world where the only certainties are taxes, change and death.” – Nicky Hayward, Mental Health Campaigner [more]

Alternative Ways Of Understanding Their Pain

“The whole day has been a trans-formative experience. I have always been uncomfortable with labels but felt I had to go along with it. Now I feel empowered to offer the people I work with the option at least to explore alternative ways of understanding their pain.” – Participant on Birmingham course

Participant, Birmingham

Listen to people, to their stories

“Lucy’s straight forward, commonsense approach was just what I needed at the moment. Her message is simple: Listen to people, to their stories and help them make their own sense about their lives” – Participant on Birmingham course

Participant, Birmingham

An exciting and liberating journey

“I feel like I am at the beginning of an exciting and liberating journey. Thank you Lucy” – Participant on Birmingham course

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About AD4E

This one day event is for everyone who is interested in the current debates around mental health. It is a chance to discuss the critical questions of the day around the biomedical model in mental health. [more]